Comments (7)

Maybe they were testing different wing profiles... Anybody has some information?

Anonymous

12 years ago

Somebody had a very close look at the wingtips of an eagle. Must have good slowflight capabilities

Anonymous

11 years ago

These endings are part of an experimental series aiming to reduce induced drag - these wingtips offer the performance of much longer wings or winglets. Indeed they were inspired by the wingtips of large flying birds - based on the simple observation the albatros or seagull (having the slender wings like high performance sailplanes - are not the biggest (heaviest) birds! Obviously, the heaviest birds (swans, vultures) habe quite short wings, but wingtips ending in separate feathers - giving us a strong hint that the efficiency of this wing type may be superiot to that of wings with huge aspect ratios.- sd

Anonymous

11 years ago

In my opinion there is ideal motive insolation ... sharpness well done too ...
Looking forward to get more information about winggrids.... rgds Klaus LE

Anonymous

8 years ago

I am in the process of building a 4.5 meter scratch-built glider of my own design, and am looking for elegant solutions to cleanup tip vortices. This stemme anti-vortice solution is the most impressive and original i have come across.

Anonymous

6 years ago

It's cool looking but that's probably about it... These may reduce induced drag by reducing the wing tip vorticies but more than likely the increase in the parasitic drag from having multiple airfoils stacked (which increases the frontal cross section) will greatly out weigh the decrease in induced drag... Induced drag is really only a problem on larger aircraft, that's why you don't see a skyhawk with winglets and even winglets on small jets are mostly for show... engineering also includes aesthetics and lets face it, winglets look good.

My name is Bernardo Malfitano. I work for Boeing on structural fatigue research, testing, and analysis methods development. (For example, I have designed and am currently running fatigue tests on various components from the KC-46, 737MAX, and 777X). I also teach various courses and run engineer training programs, at universities and air museums and also inside Boeing, mostly about structural analysis and airplane maintenance planning but also about more general principles of airplane design.

I believe that this use of this image falls within the Fair Use standards of American copyright law: Educational purposes, not taking away from the demand for your products, and using only a small thumbnail: The image will only be less than 25% of the size of the slide. However, despite this fact, I thought I would credit your ownership of the image, and give you a heads-up.

If you object to this, or would like me to change how I word the image credit, please let me know.